Chapter 4 – The Night

(Disclaimer: View chapter 1)

The common room was completely lifeless – at least it seemed so on the first sight. But there was movement in the shadows. It was – Hermione. She tried to find a comfortable place where she could wait for Ron; her watch already showed 12:40 am. She was tired because she had not slept at all, too afraid not to wake up in time.
She finally sat down on the floor in the shadow of one of the large armchairs and sighed. She could already feel the cold stone floor although she wore her robe over her sleeping dress. She listened carefully and as she didn't hear any noise she grabbed her wand, wiped it and whispered: "Wingarium Leviosa". A moment later she took the pillow hovering in the air in front of her and put it under her butt.
A lot better.

Another quick look at her watch. 12:42 am. The minutes seemed to last hours...
She knew she should take the time and do something useful, but she didn't know what. She had thought of bringing her quill, ink bottle and vellum with her, but she was not in the mood for studies (a feeling she had never had before that day – now she could imagine how the others must have always felt).

After her meeting with Ron she had spent the rest of the evening sitting around and trying to think of a plan. She knew she needed one, else she had no chance to make her idea work.

But what exactly should she do?

Reaching the library, finding the right book and learning the spell would be no problem. But the rest? She had absolutely no idea how to get Snape into the right place – she couldn't bewitch him in front of the whole Potions class! Not that she planned to take part in the Potions lessons ever again..........
What she needed was him and her in a quiet place where nobody disturbed them.
"Fine", that enervating little voice in her head said, "just like his bedroom?"

Hermione frowned. This led to nothing.

She didn't notice that she slowly fell asleep, but she had a very weird dream.
She was running through the old dungeons below the castle. The other pupils were standing along her way, some of them just stared at her, the others pointed at her and laughed as if someone had made the best joke ever heard. And Hermione ran, she ran as fast as she could.
She heard the sound of feet rushing after her and tried to run even faster. She screamed at the pupils to help her, but none of them did. She ran until she reached a dark abyss which was so deep that she couldn't see the ground. She stopped and turned around, breathing heavily. She heard that the haunter approached more and more and finally she saw who it was – Snape.
He walked towards her with his wand lifted and a grim expression on his face. Hermione just knew she didn't have her wand and stepped backwards – and fell with a scream. Deeper and deeper into the abyss.
She closed her eyes in desperation and prepared for a hard impact which would extremely hurt her – if she survived at all. But instead she was caught by two arms which were strong, but yet softly holding her. She felt smooth lips gently touching hers and returned the kiss with delight. When she finally opened her eyes she looked directly into Snape's face. "Snape?", she whispered and he smiled at her. "Hermione...", he mumbled. "Hermione..."

"Hermione!"

She scared up and looked directly into Ron's face. He had shaken her and his hand still laid on her shoulder.

"Heavens! You've got a healthy sleep, haven't you? And why do you hide over here? I almost went back when you weren't there, but your luck I heard you mumble something and went over to look for it."

He shook his head and stood up. Hermione caught a glimpse of her watch – it was 1:05 am. Again overslept.

She stood up and could not really realize where she was and what had happened. Her mind seemed to be still stuck in that dream while her body was here in the common room with Ron.
She didn't even remember what Ron was up to and why she had been sleeping in the common room instead of in her bed – all she could think of was that dream. The feeling of security while being hold, and above all the kiss.

But Ron didn't give her any more time to think about that. He helped her stand up and handled her a bundle.

"Here you are. Put it under the armchair on the left side of the fireplace when you've finished. I'll fetch it after getting up and put it back into Harry's suitcase. Use it well! I won't steal it another time, don't forget that!"

With these words he turned around and left. Hermione stared at his back, then at the bundle in her hands. And slowly she remembered. The invisibility cloak. The spell. And she realized she had to hurry. If she only had the Marauder's map... But there was no chance in asking Ron for that favour!

All the way down to the library she again and again lived through the kiss she had dreamed of. She was confused because she had dreamed of Snape – on the one hand the Snape they all knew, and in the next second a completely different kind of man. The odd thing was that she had to admit to herself that she felt attracted to this different Snape.
The much she tried to convince herself that it was only because of her dream, the more she felt this was not honest. But she was afraid of what she felt and rushed faster, always carefully listening and watching out for Filch, Mrs. Norris or any teacher.

But she reached the library without any incidents and quickly stepped in. Wearing the invisibility cloak she didn't mind to enter the restricted area and walked along rows of books.
Finally she found what she had been looking for – and old leather-bound book which she had once seen in the Potions lesson when Snape had used it, always paying attention that none of the pupils could get a glimpse of anything written on the pages.

Now she took it out of the rack and held it in her hands – Gordon Geronimo's "Spells for Past and Future". It was quite heavy and so she put it down on a small table beneath. After a moment of hesitation (she was well aware of what had once happened to Harry when he had opened a book in the restricted area) she reached for the front cover and opened the book on page one.
Nothing happened. Neither did the book start to scream, nor did it try to bite her with sharp-edged teeth. It seemed to be just a book.

Before she began reading she listened carefully, but it was absolutely quiet and so she bent forward over the book and searched through the index. --- There it was. Page 948, "The Obliviate Spell".

Hermione agitation come up inside her when she read what was written on the page. A detailed explanation of the spell, of all the moves she had to perform with her wand and the magical words she had to say. In one word: The most perfect instruction she could have ever found.

Taking a deep breath she bent forward and studied the spell.

Hours later – the sun was already about to rise in the east and the sky began to show a light red at the far horizon – Hermione hushed through the halls and long corridors. Her eyes were red and burned and she was so tired she could hardly manage to walk, but she was very satisfied.
The spell had appeared to be a lot more difficult than she had expected, but this had not been able to stop her. And so she had again and again read words written in old, squiggly letters on the yellwoed paper. And finally it had been clear to her.

Nothing could stop her now. Nothing. She was prepared for the next step – all she needed now was a ton of luck to get Snape into the right kind of situation. Well... and sleep...

The hallways seemed to be all the same to her, and she didn't pay attention to Filch any more, but finally she found herself in front of the painting of the fat lady who yawned even more than Hermione did.
"Prolongatio", Hermione said and the painting swung aside to let her enter the Gryffindors' common room as she passed the entrance, the fat lady had already fallen asleep again.

All she could think of was one thing: That she was able now to delete 'the night' from Snape's memory. She was so into these thoughts that she almost forgot to get rid of the cloak, but luckily she remembered in the last moment and put it under the armchair on the left side of the fireplace, just the way Ron had advised her to do.
Then she turned around, crossed the room and climbed up the steps to the dorm room where she tiptoed in to not scare up her room mates.

A few minutes later she was lying in her bed and when she fell asleep she had a very pleased smile on her face...

...to be continued...
I know it took me a very, very, very, very, very,... long time to post the next chapter. Forgive me – I've started to work, I'm in love plus I've had again and again problems with my computer.

I hope you're not too disappointed that this chapter is a bit boring – it's just a bridge to the following chapters.

Those of you who long for a flashback... You will soon get what you want.
And I will hurry with the next chapter. Promised.